EDITOR’S QUESTION
Early
birds and
catching
worms
A
s a manufacturer
and designer of
network cabling
systems, how can you
support the channel
in developing the
best design concept
for customers and
deliver a high quality
installation?
When partners come together early, they can establish a
design that will ensure reliability, manageability, scalability
and efficiency, says Prem Rodrigues, Sales and Marketing
Director for India, Middle East and SAARC at Siemon.
W
hen it comes to designing
and implementing a network
– whether it’s a datacentre
or LAN – customers will often turn
to advice from equipment vendors on
power and cooling, switching and storage
technologies. But it’s even more important
to consider advice from expert cabling and
connectivity manufacturers. While the
cabling infrastructure represents just 5 per
cent of the overall network investment, it
is the critical foundation upon which every
network relies. The cabling infrastructure
impacts it all – performance, reliability,
manageability, scalability and efficiency
– and, as such, it needs to be properly
designed during the very early stages of
any project.
Network cabling infrastructures
should be designed to support two to
three generations of network switches,
servers and storage equipment. And
because the cabling infrastructure is the
most disruptive and labour-intensive
portion of a network to replace, it
should be expected to last 10, 15 or even
20 years. Unfortunately, the cabling
infrastructure is also to be blamed for
nearly 70 per cent of all network problems:
from substandard components and
50
poor installation practices, to lack of
flexibility and manageability resulting
from insufficient planning and design.
That’s why it is vital to work with leading
cabling manufacturers that provide a
comprehensive system warranty along with
independent third-party test reports, while
also partnering with leading designers,
integrators and installers.
When key partners come together early
in the design and planning stage, they
can more effectively establish a well-
thought-out design that will ultimately
ensure reliability, manageability,
scalability and efficiency. For example,
cabling pathway layouts that provide
redundancy are critical to maintaining
network availability, while ensuring that
channel lengths stay within standards-
based distance limitations are critical to
supporting the application. A category 6A
twisted-pair cabling channel that extends
beyond the standards-based 100-metre
distance may ultimately not support a
10GBASE-T application that delivers 10
Gb/s transmission speeds.
Furthermore, cabling pathways need to
be designed and deployed in a way that do
not block air flow in datacentres; overfilling
pathways can trap cold air and prevent
Prem Rodrigues, Sales and Marketing Director
for India, Middle East and SAARC at Siemon.
it from reaching equipment, leading to
equipment performance issues. Cabling
infrastructures in datacentres also need
to be designed to accommodate growth,
such as using central patching locations
where moves, adds and changes are made
rather than running new links. Out in the
horizontal LAN infrastructure, there are
also considerations surrounding heat rise
in cable bundles when running Power over
Ethernet (PoE), and partnering with a
cabling manufacturer that offers bundling
guidance and is well in tune with industry
standards and application requirements is
key to a successful installation.
Regardless of the performance of the
components and the upfront planning and
design assistance provided by a cabling
manufacturer, it is clear that installation
quality is also paramount to final system
performance. Customers would therefore
be wise to examine the installer training
and certification programmes provided by
the manufacturer. For example, training
programmes certified by independent
organisations such as BICSI provide an
additional layer of quality assurance. The
best training programmes will also be ISO
9001 certified, which offers a higher level
of quality as well as global consistency.
Issue 09
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS